OpenSea Introduces New Stolen Item Policy To Combat NFT Theft
With asset theft being one of the biggest headaches in the non-volatile token (NFT) space, NFT marketplace OpenSea is looking to adjust its policies to include additional measures against stolen items.
In a statement, the company emphasized that its policy is consistent with US law, which prohibits the intentional sale of stolen goods. However, the market has recognized that in some cases, consumers who unknowingly purchased stolen goods have been penalized even though they were not at fault. With this and feedback from the community, NFT has adjusted its policy to increase the use of Market Police Reports.
Previously, police reports were used within the platform to escalate disputes. With the new update, it will be used to confirm all reports of stolen items on the NFT platform. Without a police report for seven days, the platform will revert to allowing the purchase and sale of claimed items to prevent false reports. Since then, the company has also worked to make it easier to restore buy-sell functionality after finding stolen items.
The NFT platform also emphasized that it is working on finding other solutions to address the NFT theft issue at its core. According to the announcement, the company is working on automating threat and theft detection.
One Twitter user praised the move as a good first step and encouraged other platforms to follow suit, suggesting they consider the nuances of other countries' laws. On the other hand, some members of the community are still unhappy and expressed their problems on Twitter. One user wrote:
Meanwhile, another user claimed to have unknowingly bought stolen NFTs and was advised by OpenSea support staff to sell them on other NFT markets.
In June, the NFT platform activated additional security features to protect its users from NFT scams. This feature hides NFT transfers that are automatically marked as suspicious. This is to ensure that only valid transactions are visible on the market.